Game Developer Research: Top 50 Game Developers 2009

Game Developer Magazine’s Game Developer Research division has published its second annual report of the top 50 game developers of 2009. Their metrics are based according to the number of games created, sales, market data, surveys, reputation and their metacritic ratings. Each developer were ranked based on sales from 2008 with US, UK and Japanese sales charts.

Nintendo has came up on top of the honors again for the second year holding up a large portion of their sales on the Wii and DS. Activision Blizzard climbed up to second place this year due to the large success of the most popular mmorpg, World of Warcraft and its expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

The full list can be viewed below:

1. Nintendo
2. Blizzard Entertainment
3. Ubisoft Montreal
4. Rockstar North
5. EA Canada
6. Konami
7. Valve Software
8. Epic Games
9. EA Tiburon
10. Treyarch
11. Hal Laboratory
12. Capcom
13. Traveller’s Tales
14. Bethesda Game Studios
15. Insomniac Games
16. Namco Bandai Games
17. Ea Redwood Shores
18. Koei
19. Kojima Productions
20. Harmonix Music Systems
21. Media Molecule
22. Lionhead Studios
23. Vicarious Visions
24. Maxis
26. Neversoft Entertainment
26. Game Freak
27. Square Enix
28. Digital Illusions CE (Dice)
29. Success
30. Ready At Dawn
31. Atlus
32. Criterion Games
33. TOSE
34. Mythic Entertainment
35. Firaxis Games
36. Volition
37. Sega
38. SCE Japan Studio
39. Ironclad Games
40. Marvelous Interactive
41. Yuke’s Future Media Creators
42. SCE London Studio
43. Visual Concepts
44. Intelligent Systems
45. Omega Force
46. Monolith Productions
47. Funcom
48. SCE Studios San Diego
49. Rare
50. Treasure

A more detailed analysis of the top 50 developers, including brief analysis and reputation responses, is available in the June/July 2009 issue of Game Developer magazine, out now and available at the magazine’s website.

However, the full Top 50 Developers report, including extensive feedback, comparative charts, and statistics for all top 50 developers, as well as feedback and data for additional studios, is available via Game Developer Research’s website for digital download at the cost of $2,995. Not something I can afford to get my hands on but hey, there’s bound to be plenty who will be interested.

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